Northwest Fishing Reports

OK guys, here's one for you. When you're fishing for bass in a lake that has both bass and tigers in it, what precautions can you take to avoid accidentally hooking a tiger and running the risk of it breaking or shredding your line while it swims off with a crankbait tangled in it's face? I don't really want to use a leader on my topwater bass gear but I also don't want to possibly kill a tiger.

Hey bub,
I don't know thats a tough one to answer. Maybe use barbless hooks. Or if you get a follow stop the bait and don't move it. Or just use a leader. Or find a bass lake with no tigers in the lake. Like I said its a hard question to answer,but a good question..good luck.

What lake do you have in mind? If you're thinking Fazon, it's unlikely there are still any tiger muskies in there. In any case, muskies are adept at spitting lures and slack line is often all they need to get away. Of course, the surest way to not catch a muskie is to do all your fishing on a bar stool. That's the traditional way of not catching muskies in Wisconsin's northwoods.

I have wondered if a good compromise would be to use some spectra based "Super Dacron" line as a leader. With 30 lb spectra having the diameter of 8 lb mono, it would provide fantastic flexibility for lure movement, and be less visible than a wire leader I would think.

tmusky your talking about coming here to Lake Tapps. Well in the past 4 years We've had 7 muskies in the boat (only been targeting them the last two years) I've only had 2 muskies caught with steel leaders. I have only been broken off three times in the four years. two of the times it was on a Rapala and the lures was amazingly spit out and returned to the surface. the other time was my first visit, before I realized they were in there, and lost my spinner and half my spool. this really isn't the lake to use top water baits unless your trying to get Tigers. The largemouth population is almost nonexistent. I know smallies hit topwater but the water still isnt warm enough and the lake isn't even full yet. I will also be out there on Saturday, say Hi to all fishermen and maybe it'll be me! Good Luck!!
Kenster

Yep, I was actually thinking Tapps when I wrote the original post. I didn't know the largemouth population was that low. We'll probably just use leaders on all of our stuff for this trip. If you see a tan and brown river sled out there on Sat. that's us.

Sounds like everyone is going to be fishing Tapps on Saturday! I'll probably be out there too.

Do muskies hit soft plastics (jig, drop shot, and t-rigged)? If not, that may be a good thing to try for the smallies without risking hooking a toothy critter and breaking off.

Oh yeah they hit soft plastics. I've caught them in Mayfield with plastics although I use the big versions.They may not bother with the tiny (to them) stuff.

Well guys I really hate to break the news to you, but right now any size bait is going to be tempting to the Tigers. There is a new crop of them this year. We saw one at the lanch a little over a foot long so that little fellow will go after 4" worms and tubes.
Just a thought, go wanting to catch them and they will leave your baits alone. It seems to always work for me.
Bill

my last musky was caught on a 3.5" tube! thought he was gonna break me off so i even had Mustangman take a picture before we landed him, it's perfect, shows the tube hooked right there! cant figure out how to attach the photo to the forum, it says file too large? so anything goes no matter what size!


ps... for now i will just repost on the reports! if someone can explain how to cut my jpegs small enough to post in the forum then i can place them here. i'm not exactly a cumputer genius.

The Berkley leaders are very small and I doubt if they'd detract much from your presentation. Most stores carry them. Try the 20#. They're pretty small. They come black and chrome. Steel leaders don't seem to scare away any smallies from my musky baits, Tapps or Curlew.

Turns out that I didn't need any advice on NOT catching a musky. I must be an expert at that because we didn't catch jack Sat at Tapps. Not even a smallie. Oh well, I'm heading to Mayfield in a few weeks, on the way down there maybe we'll stop by Tapps for a few hours and give it another try.

After fishing an area with my muskie gear with no follows I decided to check out the action of my cut tail worm dropshot rig and try for bass. The worm made it about 1’ down before a muskie came out of nowhere and snatched it up! That sucker was fast! He went under the boat, back by the motor, beside the boat, and then got off. It was pretty exciting.

So… is there a way to rig a dropshot using a muskie appropriate leader?

A muskie-proof dropshot? I would say pretty much impossible, just like any other finesse tactic that calls for small clear line and a light rod. If a muskie breaks off your dropshot rig I would just tip your hat to it and tie on another.